Artists who left a comfortable position to pursue something ‘bigger’, was the grass greener?

Pirax

This is a topic that for me has been running on my mind recently.
I’d like to get some thoughts from people who potentially moved to a new job, new city etc in the idea of working on something they consider more recognised. 

Was the risk worth it in the end? Do you have any regrets? Did the place you moved to have a positive impact. 

I could chain hundreds of questions off this but it would be really interesting to hear the experiences of people who have already made that move, for those who are apprehensive about doing so themselves.

Eric Chadwick

Within the last three years, I moved from being a fulltime game dev artist, to a working-from-home freelancer working on both games and non-games, then to a fulltime onsite role at a non-games tech company. Big moves, for me. 

Freelance wasn't exactly a comfortable role (constantly on the hussle to keep projects coming in) and to be frank neither was working in games (there's always a background-level fear of the funding running out, or publisher being fickle).

But moving out of games has been awesome, for me. I'm working on higher-profile projects than I ever have, am being recognized internally and externally for it, and am being paid better, with better life-work balance to boot!

In the end, moving is always a risk. But staying put is also a risk. I say take the leap!

Pirax

Thanks for getting back to this, may I ask how prepared you were when you left your role to freelance, as in did you have immediate clients or did it take a while to get the ball rolling?

Eric Chadwick

I had one longtime client asking me to do more for them.

But their needs went up and down, sometimes more than I could handle alone, sometimes none at all. And sometimes the porridge was juuuust right. :P

It's no done deal, no matter what your experience level. If you want to do freelance full-time, you better have some savings to fall back on.

Check the freelance section on the wiki for more tips! And share em if u got em. 

RyRyB

A couple of years ago, I transitioned from full-time weapons artist in games to a position at a tech company. 

Nearly everything about it was a jump: huge increase in compensation/benefits, job responsibility and accountability, pressure/stress, etc. So in my case, the grass wasn't greener, just different. However, I don't regret it at all.

At times I miss working as a weapons artist, but that's what personal work is all about (and the occasional freelance work) For now, I'm content and in no hurry to get back into games full-time. There's enough opportunity out there to build a career as a real-time 3d artist and never touch games.

Pirax

Appreciate the response, glad to hear the consensus so far is that there are no regrets! Couple of quick questions regarding your move if I can, feel free to ignore if any are too personal! 😊

Was it challenging landing a role outside of your speciality? + might be a bit of an odd question but do you think an early version of you would have seen yourself working in a more tech focused company rather than games?

RyRyB

No worries! 

I was contacted by a recruiter for my current company over LinkedIn, so I was not actively seeking new work at the time. In that sense, it was not challenging at all. I am still doing real-time 3d, just not for games. So while my specialty was weapons, I have plenty of experience to pivot to general asset work. Same type of work, just in a different industry.

I never would have thought I would work outside of games when I started. But as industries change, opportunities to apply your skills elsewhere come along and it comes down to whether or not you want to take advantage of it. Given where I was/am at in my life, the jump to a different industry was compelling and offered a new challenge.

Biomag

For me personally moving to a different city or even better a different country is something very rewarding. At this point in life I've lived in 4 countries, and even though they were all European and not too different, they've all had their own little quirks and flavour. Being around different nationalities and cultures only helps in life. It adds valuabe perspective and experience that you can't get from anywhere else.

I moved when I was 6, then again at 33 and now 2 more times in the last 3 years. Many people I grew up with or studied or worked with never moved in their life and while I previously didn't think its a big deal, at this point I have to say they've missed out. It's not easy and not everything is better, but moving doesn't mean you can't go back. Still being confronted with starting a new life in a new place and being open to what challenges it brings along is something worth the risk/effort especially in this modern world where migration is part of so many people's life.

When it comes to taking chances for one's career its really hard to say. I threw away a degree and several years of work experience (and better pay) to switch to game dev. Was it a smart move? That's completely up to the individual. I've workoholic tendencies and having a challenging and creative job is something that I personally really need to be happy (also to avoid depression), so for me work is a very high priority in life. It wasn't easy to get where I am today and I was on the brink of giving it up before I landed a job that I wanted. It also took sacrifices chasing these jobs, but in the end it was worth it for me.

Would I recommend it to someone else? Not necessarily, as it completely depends on the individual's priorities and wishes. In my case I have no regrets, but this doesn't mean that there aren't serious compromises involved.

garcellano

Pirax said:

This is a topic that for me has been running on my mind recently.
I’d like to get some thoughts from people who potentially moved to a new job, new city etc in the idea of working on something they consider more recognised. 

Was the risk worth it in the end? Do you have any regrets? Did the place you moved to have a positive impact. 

I could chain hundreds of questions off this but it would be really interesting to hear the experiences of people who have already made that move, for those who are apprehensive about doing so themselves.

Was the risk worth it in the end? Yes. It was worth it.
Do I have any regrets about it? Yes. I wish I did some of that sooner.
Did the place I moved to have a positive impact? Yes. 

I don't mind rambling about my past jobs. Removing the freelance gigs, I had like 4-5 employers, as an employee.
After my internship at Sony in San Diego, they didn't bring me on-board, and around that time, I traveled overseas, for a college trip/alumni trip. When I came back, I ended up diving in in QA, game testing, at Sony in San Diego, through an agency. I felt like I was going backwards, but I liked the idea of trying to stay with the company, and in the city. That was it. I wish I could've stayed before my contract ended, but I hit a point where I just wanted to do something more art-related (and the pay was pretty entry-level).

Joined a vfx/film studio in Carmel Valley (which then moved to Carlsbad, northern San Diego). New job, new area. Worth it on the other spectrum. Did compositing, stereo-compositing, converting movies to stereo 3D. There was a 3D department, but it wasn't for me. Their 3D department was more for stereoscopic 3D, not really 3D modeling. I was fine with compositing. It led me to using Nuke, which I was totally fine with. I felt like I stayed there a year too long, but stuck through it. And oddly enough, that's another thing in itself, sticking through the good times and bad times at a studio. I still can't believe it, way back, that I survived 3 layoffs within like 6 months? lol, saw friends come and go, and stayed. Production changes, we've had very light, less than 40 hr work week at times, during a light period, and heavy schedules, when work started picking up. Not all of us had out names on the credits too, on the films we worked on. I worked on like 10-12 movies I think, and have my name on 2, and one of them was more of a Blu-Ray DVD release (Top Gun lol). When I saw my name on the Man of Steel credits, I was flat out done. After all my time there, I'm okay with that lol, I like Superman lol. I thought it was a good movie. But either way, I stuck through it for another year, and hoped that I left around that time.

The flip side, toss up, that I enjoyed, was actual free time. Literally, free time.
I quit that job, with no job lined up. Just risked it (and I was on a quarter-life crisis, I think, but you get the point). I just went for it.
I wanted to leave sooner, but stayed for an extra month to wrap up on another movie.
When I left, I just stay at my place, ate ham & cheese and bananas lol, had a roommate at the time that was totally fine with me going for broke, literally. We had like 6-7 months on our lease. It was an interesting time. Like a caveman just watching life fly by. I mean, I did go out, but barely. I was mostly by my desktop, trying to update my portfolio or revamp it.
But yeah, got a job at the end of my lease.

Worth it. Military sim job. Adayana/Vertex Solutions. I didn't care. 3D Artist related gig. Hell yeah. Remote full-time gig. Hell yeah again. I moved to Seattle. Worked remotely. Went wild trying to get to know the scene there. Fun times. Got laid off after a year there. Freaked out. Moved back to San Diego. Went back on the hunt. But it was worth it. 

*Excluding any freelance gigs

Landed a gig in Seattle a year after that, and finally a quote-unquote Environment Artist gig. Hardsuit Labs. It was fun. I'll be a bit open about it. Being back in Seattle was fun as hell. Did the same thing. Just went wild again. Same stuff. Maybe I got wilder? Maybe. But I was just glad to get back on that. I still can't believe I was there for quite a while, but yeah.. got fired/terminated.. like a few days after GDC this year. Oddly enough, it didn't phase me. If this was back when I was at the vfx/film studio years ago, then yeah, I would've freak out. But, the reason behind it, not bad to me. This was just a few months ago, literally, like 7 months ago. I still like the environment art team, and am pulling for the Bloodlines 2 game, but the moment I walked out that office, I just went back on the hunt. 

One of things I was aiming for, after I got fired.. was wanting to work at a AAA studio, as an Environment Artist. 
So, yeah, it was worth it. I'm in NY now, at Vicarious Visions (under Activision). Totally worth it, to cap off the year.

You don't know how much I want to drink beer and make a huge speech right now, in a very cordial and professional manner, but I will hold off on this, maybe when I'm in Montreal, QC, or at GDC. Ooooh, I need to make a speech about this at some point. Ooo it's too early in the morning for this. 

But yeah. back to your original post.
New city. Worth it.
New job. Worth it.
Positive impact. YES, and worth it.